


take me past the broken place

by thebitterbeast



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Death Fix, ColdAtom Secret Santa 2017, Gen, It is a mess, It's A Wonderful Life AU, M/M, Temporary Character Death, i had a lot of fun with this but also
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-01
Updated: 2018-01-01
Packaged: 2019-02-26 05:20:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13228902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebitterbeast/pseuds/thebitterbeast
Summary: Thinking the team would be better off results in Ray quietly attempting to leave them behind. Fate, or something like it, steps in to show him just how much he matters.-Prompt: It’s A Wonderful Life type AU. No suicide, or suicide ideation. Just Ray, thinking about leaving the team because he just screws things up. He then gets a glimpse into their world without him, through a dream or magic - bonus for Lisa Snart as his own personal angel type, guiding him through. The Legends know him, remember he existed, but he disappeared, or maybe finished things in the Oculus. Ray gets to see how much they love and rely on him, and weirdly, gets to see how heartbroken Leonard is without him there. (Happy ending of course, it’s the holidays!)





	take me past the broken place

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dametokillfor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dametokillfor/gifts).



> I haven't actually seen It's A Wonderful Life, so this was me playing around with the general gist of the story and adding my own twist - and a lot of angst? - to it.

Ray walks around as a ghost, unseen and unheard. Seeing and hearing, but unable to interact.

* * *

This is not where the story starts.

* * *

The story starts when the team breaks time and splits up. Ray watches, quietly, observingly, as everyone finds somewhere to go, something to do.

 

Nobody notices him look down at the shrunken ATOM suit and frown consideringly.

 

Nobody notices him slip away while they discuss the merits of starting a new team in this time, in this city, or joining the existing teams in Central or Star.

 

Nobody notices.

* * *

It is not the first time he has thought about leaving the team behind. Far from it. But he has always talked himself out of it. Told himself that he can make a difference, he is doing good.

 

They broke time. Before that they almost broke themselves.

 

And before that? Ray sees just how much he is not needed in the time.

 

They managed just fine without him, without the ATOM. He has seen it, has lived it. He has heard their comments and borne their judgement, and it has chipped away at what little conviction he has left that he is making a difference.

 

That he can be a hero.

 

He is no hero.

 

He will never be a legend.

 

But he can make sure he is not a burden to his - to the team.

 

This time he does not talk himself out of leaving.

 

This time, he packs up and he leaves them behind, heart heavy but conscience clear.

 

They will be better off without him.

* * *

There is a ticket in his hand, to somewhere away from his - the team. Somewhere away from his past. He holds it tight, stares down at it, the pang of regret too small this time for him to consider going back.

 

“You never struck me as someone who would run away.”

 

The voice next to him is impossible. There is a crick in his neck with how fast he turns to look at the woman next to him.

 

She is dead.

 

She should be dead.

 

Yet, there she is, legs crossed, a single eyebrow raised at him as she tilts her head consideringly.

 

Dinah Laurel Lance. The Black Canary. Sara’s sister. His friend.

 

A ghost, and yet, there is a warmth from where she sits next to him. He gapes rather unattractively at her. He has so many questions but he utters none of them. The words just do not come.

 

“Why are you leaving, Ray?”

 

He looks away, casting eyes around to see if anyone is paying them any mind. To see if anyone else notices the apparition next to him. It is late, and there are few people around, but none pay the pair any mind.

 

Ray looks back at Laurel, answering her question with one of his own. “How are you here?”

 

There is a smile he recognises on her lips. He sees it often in the mirror. Ray knows he will not like the answer and wishes he could take his question back.

 

“I’m here to help you.”

 

It does not tell him how she is here, only why. But the melancholy on her lips is one he knows well, and he does not ask again.

 

“I don’t need help. I know what I’m doing.”

 

“Do you?”

 

He cannot look at her. His gaze drops to the ticket in his hand, his thumb absently running alongside his destination.

 

“What’s in Ivy Town?”

 

Ray does not answer at first. Laurel lets the silence grow between them. She is patient, waiting for him to gather himself, to give her an answer she will hopefully accept.

 

“A new start.”

 

She scoffs. He turns to look at her, a frown on his lips. This time, there is judgement in her eyes and her tone when she repeats, “I didn’t think you were the type to run away.”

 

“I’m not running away,” he says immediately.

 

She raises a single eyebrow again. “Then why are you leaving?”

 

He spreads his hands expansively. “They don’t need me.”

 

The judgement fades into a soft expression that makes his stomach clench uncertainly.

 

“Are you sure about that?”

  
Just as he opens his mouth to respond, she reaches out one hand to him and touches his cheek gently.

 

The world swirls around them.

* * *

When the world reforms, they are on the Waverider.

 

“What?” Ray turns to Laurel, half-accusing and half-questioning. “Why have you brought me here?”

 

The other question he wants to ask is how has she brought him here, but she has walked ahead without answering him. The only thing Ray can do is follow behind her.

 

They find the team on the bridge. Ray takes a few steps forward, confusion at the despondent looks on their faces. Confusion at a number of things. He turns slowly, and the confusion slips to a shock that is plain on his face when he catches sight of yet another person who is - who should be - dead.

 

Leonard Snart is glaring at Rip, a scowl that is unfamiliar to Ray because of the utter fury that lies under it.

 

“What is going on?” His voice echoes in the bridge, but no one flinches. No one turns to respond to him. There is no reaction whatsoever at him, or at Laurel stepping up so that she is next to him.

 

No one can hear him.

 

He steps forward, directly in Sara’s line of sight, but she sees right through him.

 

No one can see him.

 

Ray swallows, a familiar ache in the pit of his stomach. He is used to people looking at him and not really seeing him. They see what they want to see, or what he wants them to see.

 

But this, this complete blankness when he is standing right in front of them. This is new.

 

“What’s going on?” This time his voice is a whisper, and next to him, Laurel exhales slowly.

 

“This is what would have happened if Leonard hadn’t taken your place at the Oculus.”

  
Ray looks around the room, a furrow forming between his brows. No one is meeting each other’s eyes. Mick is on the opposite side of the room from Leonard, who is the only one with anything other than a completely lost look on his face. Kendra has her arms wrapped around her body and is quietly crying to herself. Sara is looking down at her hands, lost, and Ray is pretty sure she is crying too. Jax and Martin are sitting quietly next to one another, their shoulders resting against each other, but Martin’s eyes are unfocused and glassy. Jax has one hand rubbing wearily at his eyes every few minutes. Rip’s hands are clenched around the back of his chair, and he is very determinedly not looking at Leonard.

 

He turns back to Laurel. “Why is no one doing anything?” He is more than a little bewildered. It is disorienting, to be invisible to people who matter to him so much. To be in the presence of two people who he has lost.

  
Yet he tries to gather himself and straightens his shoulders and asks again, “Why are they just sitting there? They still have to stop Savage.”

 

There is something like pity in Laurel’s soft gaze when he looks up at Ray. “Without you to offer them hope, to remind them to keep fighting, they are struggling.”

 

Ray casts a glance over his shoulders, eyes skimming the group and landing, almost guiltily, on Leonard. A wistfulness breezes over him so quickly as he takes in the man he has missed more than he has allowed himself to admit.

 

He tears his gaze away before the feeling can overtake him.

 

Laurel puts her hand on his shoulder and squeezes gently, but does not say anything. The world begins to swirl around them again, and Ray tries to catch one more glimpse of Leonard before he is whisked away.

 

The last thing he sees is blue eyes, filled with more grief than he can comprehend.

* * *

Ray stumbles slightly when the world comes back into focus. His surroundings are unfamiliar to him, but the man in front of him is not.

 

“Nate?”

 

It comes as no surprise when the man does not react, and Ray is already turning to Laurel for answers. Her hands are tucked into the pockets of her jeans, and there is a wrinkle on her forehead as she keeps her eyes fixed on a restrained Nate.

 

“Watch,” is all she says in response.

 

There is a sinking pit in his stomach as he turns back to his friend, whose eyes are fixed on the now-opening door. The terror plain to see on Nate’s face is both familiar and unfamiliar. It has been a long time since he has seen such stark emotion on the historian’s face, and Ray’s blood runs cold.

 

The men that enter the room are silent, as is Nate. Ray eyes the tools in their hands as warily as the man on the metal slab. There is only quiet resignation and then a pained whimper that strikes Ray’s heart when the men start to cut into Nate’s arms.

 

“Why isn’t he steeling up?” There is panic in his voice. He wants to hit something, or someone. He even takes a swing at one of the men attempting to cut Nate open, but passes through him and almost falls to the ground. He growls inarticulately and turns wild eyes, scared eyes, to Laurel. “He’s losing too much blood, why isn’t he turning to steel?”

 

Ray fights back the urge to throw up at Laurel’s answer, fully comprehending the direness of Nate’s situation. “You didn’t make it out of the Oculus, remember? Who would make the serum?”

 

“He’ll bleed out,” he whispers, half to himself. The panic he feels, and the fear, increase the longer he watches his friend get cut into. Occasionally, the men inject him with something that seems to slow the bleeding down for a time, but Ray knows there is no cure for hemophilia, and that sooner rather than later, the blood loss will be too much. “Where’s the team? They won’t just leave him.”

 

But he does not know that. He cannot say that for certain. Not when he does not even know how things went with Savage in this version of events. He has to believe it though. He has to hold on to hope that they will come for Nate.

 

It is far too long before he hears the sounds of fighting outside the door. Nate is too pale and feverish, but the familiar sound of the Cold Gun just outside has Ray’s heart lifting. He turns and watches as the door bursts open, and there is an exhale of relief at the man standing in the doorway.

 

He cannot help but catalogue the differences between the Leonard standing in front of him and the one in his memories. There is a flintiness to his eyes that surpasses the way he had been when they first met. He is harder, his face leaner.

 

The oddest of all is the distance between him and Mick.

 

Ray does not focus on that. Instead, he frowns as he notices the silence from Captain Cold. The lack of a quip and a smirk is striking. He glances at the careful way Mick and Rip are handling Nate and ignores the urge to look over at Leonard again.

 

“He’ll be okay, right?”

 

“This time.”

 

Her hand covers his, fingers curling over his palm, and the world swirls around him.

* * *

The world swirls back into focus, and he is on the Waverider again.

 

There is no one in the vicinity, and there is silence around him. It is eerie. Even in the darkest of moments, Ray does not remember there being utter silence. There has always been a murmur of conversation between people, and a notion of movement.

 

Now? Now even the hum of the ship seems muted.

 

He does not wait for Laurel before he stalks down the halls, trying to find someone, anyone. The tension in his shoulders is back the longer he walks. His hands begin to clench into fists at his side, nails digging into his palm to keep from losing control over his emotions as he realises everybody is on their own.

 

Jax is in the engine room, silently making sure everything is running smoothly. Martin is in the lab, bent over a notebook, not even muttering to himself. Sara is using the salmon ladder she had talked him into helping her install. Rip is in his study, going through newspaper clippings quietly, not even conferring with Gideon. Nate is flipping through books in his room. Amaya is meditating in hers. Mick is in the kitchen, but the food in front of him is untouched. Leonard - Leonard is sitting in what used to be Ray’s room, and in his hands is a sweater.

 

Ray recognises that sweater. It is one of his favourites. He remembers mentioning that off-handedly to Leonard once.

 

The look on Leonard’s face is nothing Ray has ever seen before. His thumb strokes the soft wool of Ray’s sweater, and there is raw emotion on his face. Naked heartbreak so unexpected that Ray’s breath catches in his throat.

 

It is the last thing he expects from Leonard.

  
It is the same heartbreak he has been denying himself since the Oculus explosion, and his realisation that Leonard means more to him than he had known.

 

He takes a step forward, hand reaching towards the older man before he remembers that the other will neither see nor hear him. His eyes close tight as he drops his hand to his side.

 

Ray is a ghost, unseen and unheard. Seeing and hearing, but unable to interact.

 

“Why are you showing me this?”

 

If there are tears in his voice that he refuses to let fall from his eyes, Laurel does not react to them. She is infinitely gentle when she speaks, however.

  
“To show you your worth.”

 

“They don’t need me.”

 

It is a token protest, his voice weak, his conviction gone. Ray’s heart aches now with the knowledge that his presence on the team makes a difference. At least in this universe, in a world where Leonard never took his place at the Oculus, he is missed. His absence is felt.

 

“There is one last thing I need to show you.”

 

Neither of them mention the tears in his eyes when he looks over to her and nods silently. He turns back to look at Leonard, wanting him to be the last thing he sees before the world swirls around him once again.

* * *

They are in the hallway leading to the cortex of STAR Labs when the world reforms around them. Laurel holds on to Ray’s hand tight to stop him from taking a step forward.

 

“This isn’t the version of the world we just left,” she says seriously, catching his eyes. His eyebrows furrow in confusion. She continues, almost carefully, “This is your world.”

 

His expression clears slightly, and despite all that he has just seen, his tone is a little wry and self-deprecating, “Have they realised I’ve left, then?”

 

Laurel’s lips tighten into a line and she looks at him flatly. “It’s being pointed out.”

 

The twist of his lips into a grin is small. He is surprised that Laurel is showing him this, after showing him why he is important to the timeline. This is only highlighting what he thinks, that the team can survive without him. If someone needs to point out he is not with them, well, then - he is not really important, is he?

 

He takes cautious steps into the cortex, where Team Flash is standing at one side, some of them staring judgingly at the team. Cisco has his arms crossed as he frowns. Iris looks worried, having a silent conversation with Barry before they focus back at the man standing in the middle of both teams.

 

Ray stops in his tracks, mouth dropping open.

 

His heart lurches. He stumbles forward a few steps, wide-eyed until he is next to the apparition in the center.

 

Even this close, he is unsure he believes his eyes.

 

“How?”

 

He cannot bring himself to turn to Laurel for answers, terrified that if he tears his eyes from the man in front of him, he will disappear.

 

“When the Oculus exploded, he was scattered through the time stream. The speed force is connected to the time stream, and the speedsters noticed something off, recently. It’s taken them a while, but Team Flash managed to gather the bits of him out of time and resync him to our timeline.”

 

“So what you’re saying is he’s been alive this whole time?”

 

He feels guilty for never having considered that. For accepting his death at face value and never looking further. Ray feels like he has failed Leonard in some way, but Laurel has no chance to respond to the heaviness in his tone because Leonard is speaking.

 

“None of you noticed Raymond was missing.” It is not a question, it is a statement. A damning statement. He is glaring at the team, and Ray knows that glare from the other version of events he has just seen.

 

His heart lurches again, remembering the look on Leonard’s face just a few minutes ago for him.

 

Mick is scowling back at Leonard, and that, at least, is a reminder that Ray is back in his own timeline. The Mick from the other timeline had avoided Leonard as far as he had seen. “Haircut’s been complainin’ ‘bout missing Hanukkah. Probably went to a temple.”

 

A little bit of warmth spreads through his chest. Mick has been listening to his rambling. Ray knows they are friends. Mick is one of the few people on the Waverider whose judgement is never unwarranted, and who trusts him with and without the suit.

 

It is still gratifying to know that Mick listens.

 

Leonard’s scowl lessens slightly, but not enough. “None of you noticed,” he stresses. The team - besides Mick - looks confused as to why this is irritating Leonard so much. Team Flash, not so much. “He could be dead, or dying, or taken. His luck is shitty enough.”

 

The fondness in that last statement takes Ray by surprise. It should not, after what he has just seen. After the look on Leonard’s face and the grief in his eyes, and the way it tears at his heart and cuts through the walls he has put up to keep his own feelings at bay. Still, it surprises him.

 

His eyes are fixed to Leonard’s form and he barely catches the response to his comment. The conversation that is going on is background noise to the fact that Leonard is alive. Leonard is alive, and Leonard is looking for him.

 

He does not register Laurel approaching him until she speaks to him from directly behind him. Amusement colours her tone, but her question is sincere too, he can tell; “Still want to run away?”

 

This time he does not say the team does not need him, though not all of him is convinced they do. Instead, he says, “I never wanted to in the first place,” because he needs her to know that. He needs her to know that he wants to stay with the team, wants to be helpful. He just felt like a misfit. Still feels miscast in the team’s roster, but he sees now that there is a space for him.

 

He casts one last look at Leonard, the mourning he usually feels replaced by a thrumming excitement under his skin. Ray turns to Laurel, a hopeful smile crossing his lips.

 

“Time to go home?”

 

She smiles back at him, and he wonders if there is any way to get her back too. She presses a kiss to his cheek, the world swirling around him one last time before he can ask.

* * *

When the world reforms, Ray is back at the train station, alone. Laurel is gone, and Ray misses her presence already. She has always been a strength to the people around her, and he closes his eyes, a murmured, “Thank you,” passing his lips.

 

Barely a few minutes have gone by. He glances down at the ticket, wavering, before everything he has seen catches up to him. Ray stands up and shoulders his bag, crumpling the ticket in his hands. He begins to head towards the exit, throwing the ticket into the bin as he walks with purpose towards the team.

 

Towards Leonard.

 

There is a smile growing on his face, but he cannot wipe it away. He is sure Leonard will not admit to feelings or fondness, but the fact of the matter is that he knows they are there. He has seen Leonard’s reaction to a world without him, has seen his emotions reciprocated.

 

He can take it slow. Ray has gone overboard before, but he knows enough to not spook Leonard off. He knows enough to settle himself under Leonard’s skin until the other will not run off at the first sign of Ray’s feelings.

 

They have time.

 

They have all the time in the world.

 

Ray will make sure of it.

* * *

Ray walks into STAR Labs and everyone turns to look at him, questions on their lips. But his eyes are fixed on Leonard’s, and his plan is thrown out the window.

* * *

Leonard’s lips are soft and surprisingly pliant under his.

* * *

This is not where the story ends.

 

-|end|-

**Author's Note:**

> I am always up for yelling with and at over at [tumblr](http://ankahikoibaat.tumblr.com/).


End file.
